A popular late '70s-early '80s Forensic Drama about the eponymous Quincy, ME (Jack Klugman) and his work handling cases in an LA coroner's office. Arguably created the Forensic Drama genre that became so popular many years later.

The show began as an entry on The NBC Mystery Movie before being shifted into a full-fledged series in its own right, and enjoyed a lengthy run (1976-1983). The basic formula had Quincy working on a corpse whose death had been ruled an accident or suicide. In each episode he would find something strange in the autopsy which would lead him to suspect murder. Quincy would then start sleuthing, inevitably picking up on clues the police missed. He'd eventually find enough evidence to force the always-clueless cops to re-classify the death as a homicide, at which point Quincy would expose the identity of the killer.

During his time solving suspicious suicides and uncovering evildoers, Quincy was assisted by loyal Lab Rat Sam Fujiyama (Robert Ito) and was constantly at odds with both Lt. Monahan (Gary Walberg), who resented Quincy's meddling, and Dr. Asten (John S. Ragin), who resented all the overtime hours Quincy and Sam racked up.

Also averted in "Murder By S.O.P." with the town doctor who knows the true identity of this week's murderer. He's killed in a car accident which is a genuine car accident.

Averted again in "The Hope Of Elkwood," where a cross-country running coach was accused of working his star pupil to death. The judge threw out the involuntary manslaughter charge on grounds of the specifics of the crime not matching the definition of the charge, only to have the guy sued for wrongful death. It finally turned out that the Body of the Week had a small tumor on his adrenal gland, making his C.O.D. natural causes exacerbated by training for his next race.

And again averted in "Nowhere To Run," which begins with a pregnant teenager running from her boyfriend; her corpse is later brought in. She jumps off a cliff and kills herself because the father of her unborn child was... her father.

Author Filibuster: Some episodes should obviously just be called "Jack Klugman's Soapbox".

"A Good Smack In The Mouth," about child abuse, gives co-teleplay and story credit to guess which cast member.

An episode where a college student dies in a hazing incident ends with a scene where, out of nowhere and with no prior setup, Quincy is suddenly giving a graduation speech at an unnamed college. His entire speech is about how terrible fraternity hazing is: which is all well and good, but would probably be more useful if he were giving it to a bunch of people who were NOT about to graduate.

Lampshaded in the late season episode that introduced his new love interest, later to become his wife. She recognized him as the hot dogging coroner who was always incensed about some issue, only to have forgotten about it a week later, when there was some new issue that he was incensed about.

The Bad Guys Win: "Scream To The Skies" - following a hearing convened in the wake of an air crash into the sea in which many people die due to the airline not having life rafts (because they weren't legally required to carry them), the airline in question brings a defamation suit against Quincy - "You've just been gagged" - which stops him from continuing his safety crusade.

"Passing" features Quincy investigating the remains of a former labor union boss who had been murdered by the union so that others could take over. Between political pressure and threats of violence, they force Quincy to drop the investigation and falsify the results... but a participant who knows the truth still comes forward, thus ultimately averting the trope.

Broken Aesop: Happens a few times. Notably in the episode "Mode Of Death" in which a big deal is made to show off how wonderful the psychological autopsy is, dedicating most of the episode to it... only for the team to come up with no definitive answer, forcing Quincy to go back and check his initial autopsy results. He finds something that he'd normally have spotted right away in any other episode and determines the cause to be murder. Take away the extended display of the group that went nowhere and the episode would be less than 15 minutes long.

Busman's Holiday: Quincy takes a few. He even uses the actual phrase on one episode.

Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Lee Porter, Quincy's love interest in the initial movie-length episodes, disappeared without a trace when the show switched to an hour-long format.

Cool Car: Well, unique at any rate. It's a hearse that says "CORONER" across the back. Danny hated it when Quincy parked it outside the bar.

He did own a restored early 20th century car but it was rarely seen, since he had little opportunity to go on a proper vacation in it.

Corrupt Corporate Executive: While Quincy runs into quite a few of these, one of the later seasons had a memorable aversion. When a executive learned that his company's poor waste disposal practices had caused a fatal accident, told Quincy that, while his lawyers had informed him he held no legal responsibility, he still felt a moral responsibility to assist in solving the crisis.

One of the worst cases was played by John Colicos (Kor of Star Trek). He murdered his boss, kept the man frozen for eight years while telling the world the man was living in seclusion, then planted the thawed body and tried to frame another man for the murder(a man who had recently been released from prison, no less, for falsely confessing to a murder to help these people cover up the real culprit in a crime), all in a plot to take control of a major corporation.

Corrupt Politician: A few show up, including a labor union boss who threatens to ruin another doctor's career if Quincy doesn't falsify the findings on a murder case.

Averted in "Murder By S.O.P." with the town mayor- he's merely been framed and has no problem giving Quincy full authority to find out who is really behind the murders.

Crossover: with Emergency! - Robert A. Cinader wrote the episode "Cover Up" which featured paramedics from Squad 44 calling Rampart Emergency to deal with a heart attack at a bowling alley. The patient is directed to a different hospital as it's closer. If they hadn't redirected the patient, he may have lived- an incompetent replacement doctor killing the patient set off the episode's key plot.

In season 7- "Smoke Screen", Engine 51 is called as part of the battalion to deal with an apartment building fire, although none of the usual Emergency! cast are present. "The Golden Hour", Rampart is called by paramedics.

"Has Anybody Here Seen Quincy?" has a possible crossover- the hospital scenes are filmed at the same set as Rampart, and it's merely referred to as "General Hospital" in dialog.

A Day in the Limelight: "Unhappy Hour" focuses more on Asten, whose niece kicks off the plot. It's also Asten, not for once Quincy, who delivers a lecture at the end... what with his niece (who becomes his late niece towards the end) having been an alcoholic.

Deadpan Snarker: Danny, the owner of the bar across the street, was king of this- moreso when dragged into the weekly plot somehow, and only averted when things involving him were serious.

Deer in the Headlights: At the start of "Images" Jessica Ross dies in an explosion because she's so shocked to see her doppelganger that she doesn't move when the doppelganger drops an explosive device on the floor.

Depending on the Writer: Quincy's relationship with his superiors and their enthusiasm for his stubbornness varies between episodes.

"Into The Murdering Mind" may well share the honours, with a touch of The Bad Guys Win thrown in for good measure (it's implied that the guy who's murdered all but one member of his family will be going after his mother as well when - not IF - he gets out of the clinic he's sent to...).

Driven to Suicide: The Victim of the Week in "Semper Fi," the disfigured model at the start of "The Depth Of Beauty," Asten's niece Melody in "Unhappy Hour" and the teenage daughter in "Nowhere To Run."

Early Installment Weirdness: The beginning episodes make it clear that Lt. Monahan finds Quincy to be an incredibly annoying thorn in his side and even Sgt. Brill doesn't like him very much. Quincy is merely a single man living on a house boat with almost no backstory beyond his current girlfriend, Lee. Lee would later vanish without a word, the subplot of Quincy's deceased wife would be worked in and Lt. Monahan was retconned into having been friends with Quincy for years.

Even Evil Has Standards: Inverted in "Stolen Tears"- a Jewish man who runs a small Holocaust remembrance museum has been sued for defamation by a professional Holocaust denier. The running b-plot is that an elderly Nazi war criminal has murdered another Jewish man. After being arrested, the Nazi agrees to testify at the lawsuit trial, on behalf of the Jewish man- he openly admits that everything happened and that he'd personally executed thousands of Jews in the camps. However, he wasn't remorseful- he was quite pleased with what he'd done, considering it a victory over a people he personally hated, and was merely disgusted that anyone would deny what he considered to be personal accomplishments, and he considered anyone who denied the Holocaust to be "beneath" Jews.

Everybody Lives: Yes, incredibly a series about a coroner managed to have the odd example of this trope (such as "Has Anybody Here Seen Quincy?" and "Never A Child").

Evil Twin: Season 4's "Images" features a lost twin murdering her famous sister to try and take her place.

Expy: The elderly cowboy actor from "Last of the Dinosaurs" is a thinly-veiled clone of John Wayne.

Extreme Doormat: How many times has Sam stayed late to run tests, to the detriment of his love and social life?

First-Name Basis: Sam, Danny and Ed(the crime scene photographer who serves as a recurring character) are typically referred to by their first name by everyone. Sam, of course, has a last name that's used often(Fujiyama), while Danny's family name Tovo is not mentioned much. Given that Ed is only a minor character, he was never given a last name.

Gory Discretion Shot: Corpses generally aren't shown on-screen even during the autopsy scenes, and even in later episodes they're only shown in brief shots. Actual autopsies are never shown, their greens never have a drop of blood on them, and organs are almost never seen.

This is played for laughs during the opening titles, in a scene from "Go Fight City Hall... To The Death" (the pilot). Quincy is performing an autopsy as some rookie police officers observe. They all pass out, but all we see are the tools used and the cops dropping.

Heroic B.S.O.D.: One episode dealt with child abuse as Quincy tried to determine which parent was beating the kid. When he found out it was the father, who had taken his son off to a fishing trip and intended to beat his son further, Quincy tracks them down and completely loses it, almost strangling the father as he ranted on about how horrid the act of child abuse was. Quincy only snapped back to sanity when the child begged Quincy not to hurt his father.

In the episode where Sam is poisoned as fallout of a plot by an animal handler to kill his lover with snake venom, Quincy breaks down and threatens the killer with a live snake to get the needed information out of him.

Something similar happens again in the final season when Quincy is mugged. He spends much of the episode terrified and traumatized, unwilling to even identify the muggers for the police, partly because of the others discussing the low conviction rate of muggers, how so many end up on the streets in short order and how so many witnesses who come forward end up suffering retaliation. Ultimately, Quincy sees a trauma therapist and admits that he isn't afraid of the muggers- he's afraid of himself. he fears that if he ever gets his hands on them he may kill them (as listed above, he's already displayed the possibility of violent assault against another human being, despite his generally high value of human life, if he's provoked)..

Hollywood Tourette's: Though the portrayal was more tempered compared to most examples of this trope.

Houseboat Hero: Quincy is that much cooler because he lives on a boat.

Karma Houdini: Per the above example in Heroic B.S.O.D. concerning the snake incident- Quincy threatened to kill a man with a deadly snake yet receives no punishment for it. Then again, the only present witnesses to this were Monahan and Brill who probably didn't give a damn and let it slide, and if anything, they'd claim the killer's accusation was falsified.

Kavorka Man: Two words that leap to mind to describe Quincy physically are "craggy" and "wizened", also, he cuts up dead people for a living. He's never lacking for skimpily-dressed 20-something female company, though.

MAD: Queasy, M.E. (which ends with our hero having to perform autopsies on the victims of the current TV season!).

Last Name Basis: The case with Quincy, Asten, Monahan and Brill. Two of them were never given actual first names, Asten's first name of Robert is only mentioned by certain characters(usually his wife or some business associate), and Monahan's first name of Frank is very rarely mentioned.

The Mafia/Yakuza: One Body of the Week, an LAPD organized crime detective, was the victim of a yakuza assassin. The oyabun was trying to work out a deal with The Mafia to buy black market guns for his operations in Japan.

The McCoy: This describes Quincy to a T. He's impulsive, emotional, very humanistic, and frequently argues with more logical characters.

Mystery Magnet: Quincy and Danny can't even go on a simple fishing trip without getting dragged into a web of intrigue.

Never Learned to Read: The subplot of "A Loss For Words" is that an arson investigator with the coroner's office is illiterate, having relied on his long-time secretary to get by in his job despite this. The one day she's out sick, he manages to really screw things up due to being unable to read a report and is eventually outed to Quincy.

Never Mess with Granny: Salome Jens plays a recently-widowed trucker in "Dead Stop" who comes of as a total badass when she has to hunt down truckers hauling illegal and deadly chemical wastes. She's well-respected by the other truckers on the road.

No Name Given: Played utterly straight. It's never mentioned — not even by his girlfriends — though a business card gives his first initial as "R". Sgt. Brill also lacks a first name, apparently never supplied with one during the series run.

Officer O'Hara: Lt. Monahan mentions his Irish grandmother from time to time.

O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In "Murder By S.O.P.", Quincy arranged a "good cop, bad cop" scene with a local sheriff to get information out of a suspected accomplice- Quincy dons a pair of brass knuckles and trashes a diner to intimidate the kid.

As detailed elsewhere in this article, Quincy can be sent into a violent rage if pushed too hard.

Passed-Over Promotion: Over the course of eight seasons, the ONLY character to get any sort of promotion was Quincy, who was bumped up to deputy coroner sometime around season 7 (which placed him as head of the coroners on his floor, but still under Asten). Everyone else stays in their respective jobs.

Poorly Disguised Pilot: "The Cutting Edge," the final episode of the series, barely features Quincy (the other regulars don't appear at all) and focuses instead on a surgeon who specializes in state of the art surgical techniques. No points for guessing it was meant as a spin-off.

Replaced the Theme Tune: The Mystery Movie episodes had a more businesslike (though still optimistic) theme tune; the more familiar theme came along when the series debuted and was edited onto the shortened versions, but the original is still heard over their end credits (although the "guy on the landscape with the flashlight" background is replaced with the big Q, and the credits themselves are changed — they're white instead of yellow, and instead of "Mystery Movie Theme: Henry Mancini" there's "Theme: Glen A. Larson and Stu Phillips"). Later seasons got a new arrangement which sounded less quirky and more suitable to the series.

The '70s: Some of Quincy's clothes are typical of seventies fashion in all its horrifying glory.

Scary Black Man: Starvin' Marvin from "Dead Stop" comes off friendly enough when we first meet him — until he later learns his partner is involved in the illegal dumping of chemical wastes, which has led to the death of a friend, and forces him to spill the beans.

Series Continuity Error: In season 4's "Semper Fidelis" Quincy is brought in on the case of a dead Marine as a purely civilian expert to double check the autopsy findings. He's even referred to as a civilian multiple times. Then in season 5's "The Final Gift" we're told he'd been in the Korean war as a doctor, in an unspecified branch of service. Then in season 7's "The Last of Leadbottom", we learn that Quincy holds a rank of captain in the Naval Reserve.

Shared Universe: With BJ and the Bear, believe it or not — the Poorly Disguised Pilot "The Girls of Hollywood High" has the PDPs' stars visiting his place of work. Asten and Sam appear but not the main man, understandably given the episode was scripted by both shows' co-creator Glen A. Larson (see Absentee Actor above).

Shown Their Work: The series had access to actual forensics lab equipment rather than props, and Mark was played by an actual LA Coronor's Office lab tech. Barring certain allowances to move the plot along, the production crew and actors often went out of their way to keep the science as accurate as could possibly be done.

Subverted when one of Monahan's close friends, a priest, is found dead with a prostitute. Monahan dumps all the pretense and begs Quincy to prove something funny is going on. In this case, even Quincy doesn't see anything strange until Monahan forces him to poke his nose around.

"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Usually once an episode, Quincy would find an excuse to chew out the murderer, a corrupt businessman, a politician, or perhaps Monahan or Asten for sitting on their butts. It's a miracle it's not known as "the Quincy speech".

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